Success Good Morning Quotes

Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

There is no tomorrow and there was no yesterday; if you truly want to accomplish your goals you must engulf yourself in today.

Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to used during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank, it's name is time. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off at a lost, whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and health. The clock is running. Make the most of today.

I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do--then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is a pheonix and it dies a thousand deaths. Usually at night. In the morning it springs up again from its ashes and crows like a happy rooster. It is never as bad as you think, it is never as good. It is somewhere in between, and success or failure depends on which end of your emotional gamut concerning its value it approaches more closely. But it is much more likely to be good if you think it is wonderful while you are writing the first draft. An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected.

If a solution fails to appear ... and yet we feel success is just around the corner, try resting for a while. ... Like the early morning frost, this intellectual refreshment withers the parasitic and nasty vegetation that smothers the good seed. Bursting forth at last is the flower of truth.

Your health is the most important commodity that you have. Without it, everything will fall apart - relationships, financial wellbeing, career, school, and so on. It is very important to take good care of yourself.

Success is waking up in the morning and bounding out of bed because there's something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that you're good at - something that's bigger than you are, and you can hardly wait to get at it again.

Being free is as difficult and as perpetual — or rather fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good jew or a good Moslem or a good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up in the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

There's no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I've started drinking my own urine. I laugh spontaneously at nothing. Sometimes I sleep under my futon. I'm flossing my teeth constantly until my gums are aching and my mouth tastes like blood. Before dinner last night at 1500 with Reed Goodrich and Jason Rust I was almost caught at a Federal Express in Times Square trying to send the mother of one of the girls I killed last week what might be a dried-up, brown heart. And to Evelyn I successfully Federal Expressed, through the office, a small box of flies along with a note, typed by Jean, saying that I never, ever wanted to see her face again and, though she doesn't really need one, to go on a fucking diet. But there are also things that the average person would think are nice that I've done to celebrate the holiday, items I've bought Jean and had delivered to her apartment this morning: Castellini cotton napkins from Bendel's, a wicker chair from Jenny B. Goode, a taffeta table throw from Barney's, a vintage chain-mail-vent purse and a vintage sterling silver dresser set from Macy's, a white pine whatnot from Conran's, an Edwardian nine-carat-gold "gate" bracelet from Bergdorfs and hundreds upon hundreds of pink and white roses.

One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly--a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content. Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that 'an ugly man.

He had never been satisfied and never would be. It wasn't success he craved, or even fame, it was history: he wanted to crack the universe open like a ripe watermelon, to arrange the mess of pulpy seeds before his dumbfounded colleagues. He wanted to take the dripping red fruit in his hands and quantify the guts of infinity to look back into the dawn of time and glimpse the very beginning. He wanted to be remembered.

Recalling those gone times, old memories lit by the fire of the new, I did not this time wonder how long it would last; I was too smart for that now. Take what you get, and don't think. Of course it could never be that easy, but there were moments, like now, that I could successfully pretend that it was, and I had no inclination to try to peer past those moments. I'm not one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be. Not you. Not me either. Because it's rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I'll take my now, waking with a lover's scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they're maybe tragedy; a good morning is a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night.

To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.

Well, that was the end of me, the real end. Two pound ten every Tuesday and a room of the Gray's Inn Road. Saved, rescued and with my place to hide in - what more did I want? I crept in and hid. The lid of the coffin shut down with a bang. Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone. No more pawings, no more pryings - leave me alone.

…watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart — all complete.

They say that the British cannot fix anything properly without a dinner, but I’m sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; if you part, you drink; if you make acquaintance, you drink; if you close a bargain, you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink. They drink, because it is hot; they drink, because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear;—they begin to drink early in the morning, they leave off late at night; they commence it early in life, and they continue it, until they soon drop into the grave. To use their own expression, the way they drink is "quite a caution." As for water, what the man said, when asked to belong to the Temperance Society, appears to be the general opinion: "it's very good for navigation.

Don’t strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else. Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn’t make a leader less effective. Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone’s opportunity. Leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people. The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault. As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses. There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination. Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing. My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor. A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time. To develop a competent team, help the leaders in your organization discover their leadership competencies and delegate accordingly. Once you step outside your zone, don’t attempt to lead. Follow. The less you do, the more you will accomplish. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed. Accepting the status quo is the equivalent of accepting a death sentence. Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life. So leaders find themselves in the precarious and often career-jeopardizing position of being the one to draw attention to the need for change. Consequently, courage is a nonnegotiable quality for the next generation leader. The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees. A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent. Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside. The first person to step out in a new direction is viewed as the leader. And being the first to step out requires courage. In this way, courage establishes leadership. Leadership requires the courage to walk in the dark. The darkness is the uncertainty that always accompanies change. The mystery of whether or not a new enterprise will pan out. The reservation everyone initially feels when a new idea is introduced. The risk of being wrong. Many who lack the courage to forge ahead alone yearn for someone to take the first step, to go first, to show the way. It could be argued that the dark provides the optimal context for leadership. After all, if the pathway to the future were well lit, it would be crowded. Fear has kept many would-be leaders on the sidelines, while good opportunities paraded by. They didn’t lack insight. They lacked courage. Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act. Leadership is about moving boldly into the future in spite of uncertainty and risk. You can’t lead without taking risk. You won’t take risk without courage. Courage is essential to leadership.

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou know not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

What are you going to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead for her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all?She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at… something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved. If you ever get the chance.That was the general theory, even if she hadn’t made a very good start of it

When you wake up each morning, take a moment to think about the kind of life you want to have. Consciously choose to have a happy life: one that is filled with love, laughter, good health and success.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.112 They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.

I stopped at the front desk, about to complain to the doorman, when I was confronted with a NEW doorman, my age but balding and homely and FAT. Three glazed jelly doughnuts AND two steaming cups of extra-dark HOT chocolate opened to the comics and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning without lodging a complaint.

Good Morning! Good Morning! Let's make some new mistakes! Let's find the things worth saving in the mess our living makes! Good Night! Good Night! Let's make some new mistakes! Let's stumble toward success and pack some snacks for little breaks!

Around the age of two, children realize that they’re separate from their mothers. In order to try out their muscles as individuals, they begin to disagree with those around them by saying no (hence the “terrible twos”). Toddlers who successfully detach from their mothers are able to say, in effect, “No, I will not eat what you want, put my boots on, or do what you say. I am a separate person.” This stage helps children learn the concept of “mine,” but it’s also part of learning to assert themselves.

One more tip. Gay Hendricks came up with what he calls the “Ultimate Success Mantra” as a good place to start. Every morning before you get out of bed, say the following: “I expand in abundance, success, and love every day as I inspire those around me to do the same.

And so Emma Morley walked home in the evening light, trailing her disappointment behind her. The day was cooling off now, and she shivered as she felt something in the air, an unexpected shudder of anxiety that ran the length of her spine, and was so intense as to make her stop walking for a moment. Fear of the future, she thought. She found herself at the imposing junction of George Street and Hanover Street as all around her people hurried home from work or out to meet friends or lovers, all with a sense of purpose and direction. And here she was, twenty-two and clueless and sloping back to a dingy flat, defeated once again. ‘What are you doing to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever, teachers. her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all? She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and be courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at…something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete.

Gone as usual in the morning, and me left behind and naked, inner thighs lightly scaled with the dried spoor of our lovemaking: she liked to stay on top afterward and let the juice run down, and I liked whatever she liked. Imagining in the shower that I could smell her still, the angular scent of those secret bones, had she always smelled so fierce and so good? Recalling those gone times, old memories lit by the fire of the new, I did not this time wonder how long it would last; I was too smart for that now. Take what you get, and don’t think. Of course it could never be that easy, but there were moments, like now, that I could successfully pretend that it was, and I had no inclination to try to peer past those moments. I’m not one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be? Not you. Not me either. Because it’s rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I’ll take my now, waking with a lover’s scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they’re maybe tragedy; a good morning is still a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night.

When you left me I was lost. I didn’t know what to do, who I was or what I was going to do. Time froze for me. I woke up every morning with you in my head. That feeling of being lost, not knowing who I was, was terrible. It was so bad that I spent everyday numbing my pain with drugs and alcohol until I passed out. Not because I enjoyed it but because it was the only way I could sleep. When I look back, you had every reason to leave me. I was no good for you. We rotted at my place, didn’t do anything, treated you bad, picked everything over you. I had no motivation to do begin work, debt stacked up higher and higher. Until finally, welcome to rock bottom. Heck im surprised you stayed as long as you did. But when you left and I realized what I did to cause this, I thought to my self that when I look back at this I want to know I tried to get her back. I couldn’t let you go without a fight, I wanted to know that I tried to get you back. And I tried. After I saw you with another person my heart broke in pieces and like pieces of glass it felt stuck in my throat. You told me its what you wanted to do from the beginning and I didn’t want to believe it. But after that I gave up on you and decided to pick up whatever pieces I had left and move on. At least I tried, that’s what I told my self. If I could go back and do it all over again, would I do it differently? Of course, but that’s not reality. I focused on what was. In a way im glad things happened this way. It opened my eyes to a different world, it made me who iam today. It gave me the best motivation possible, to prove to you and my self that I could be better. I used you everyday to get to that extra mile. Waking up every morning at awkward times thinking about you and not being able to fall back asleep. I used that to motivate me to start work everyday at 6am. And now I sit here with my successful career, my new girl friend, debt free and a fat bank account in less then a year and I have no one else to thank but MY SELF! To everyone that has made a mistake, im here to tell you that it always gets worse before its gets better!

It wasn't until the show was almost over that I figured out what it was: the crack above my David Onica that I had asked the doorman to tell the superintendent to fix. On my way out this morning, I stopped at the front desk, about to complain to the doorman, when I was confronted with a NEW doorman, my age but balding and homely and FAT. Three glazed jelly doughnuts AND two steaming cups of extra-dark HOT CHOCOLATE lay on the desk in front of him beside a copy of the Post opened to the comics and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning without lodging a complaint.

So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. "This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends." He stared at the paintings for a long time and then shook his head in discouragement. "In my mind, they were a whole lot better." Isn't that the truth? Every morning, I go to my desk and reread yesterday's pages, only to be discouraged that the prose isn't as good as it seemed during the excitement of composition. In my mind, it was a whole lot better. Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind.

You will work long days, early mornings & late nights . you will have many associates, but few or no friends. You will experience doubt, pain, confusion & failure. You will be single unless he or she understands your passion. You will be given props for your hard work. people will want you to do good, but never better than them. For that you will do many things alone.

Each morning, the rising sun tells us that there is hope. However, one must remember that hope alone cannot help unless it is supported by action driven by purpose, will, and dedication. Convert your fears into will, your angst into the desire to rise, and your hope into action, and you shall rise like the rising sun, spreading your warmth into anything that's dark and cold.

When I was a kid, summers were the most glorious time of life. Because my parents believed in hands-off, free-range parenting, I’d usually be out the door before ten and wouldn’t return until dinner. There were no cell phones to keep track of me and whenever my mom called a neighbor to ask where I was, the neighbor was often just as clueless as to her own child’s whereabouts. In fact, there was only one rule as far as I could tell: I had to be home at half past five, since my parents liked to eat dinner as a family. I can’t remember exactly how I used to spend those days. I have recollections in snapshot form: building forts or playing king of the hill on the high part of the jungle gym or chasing after a soccer ball while attempting to score. I remember playing in the woods, too. Back then, our home was surrounded by undeveloped land, and my friends and I would have dirt-clod wars or play capture the flag; when we got BB guns, we could spend hours shooting cans and occasionally shooting at each other. I spent hours exploring on my bicycle, and whole weeks would pass where I’d wake every morning with nothing scheduled at all. Of course, there were kids in the neighborhood who didn’t lead that sort of carefree existence. They would head off to camp or participate in summer leagues for various sports, but back then, kids like that were the minority. These days, kids are scheduled from morning to night because parents have demanded it, and London has been no exception. But how did it happen? And why? What changed the outlook of parents in my generation? Peer pressure? Living vicariously through a child’s success? Résumé building for college? Or was it simply fear that if their kids were allowed to discover the world on their own, nothing good would come of it? I don’t know. I am, however, of the opinion that something has been lost in the process: the simple joy of waking in the morning and having nothing whatsoever to do.

Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late; indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad". On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of Bovril to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps) were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archæology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

Galen slides into his desk, unsettled by the way the sturdy blond boy talking to Emma casually rests his arm on the back of her seat. "Good morning," Galen says, leaning over to wrap his arms around her, nearly pulling her from the chair. He even rests his cheek against hers for good measure. "Good morning...er, Mark, isn't it?" he says, careful to keep his voice pleasant. Still, he glances meaningfully at the masculine arm still lining the back of Emma's seat, almost touching her. To his credit-and safety-Mark eases the offending limb back to his own desk, offering Emma a lazy smile full of strikingly white teeth. "You and Forza, huh? Did you clear that with his groupies?" She laughs and gently pries Galen's arms off her. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the eruption of pink spreading like spilled paint over her face. She's not used to dating him yet. Until about ten minutes ago, he wasn't used to it either. Now though, with the way Mark eyes her like a tasty shellfish, playing the role of Emma's boyfriend feels all too natural. The bell rings, saving Emma from a reply and saving Mark thousands of dollars in hospital bills. Emma shoots Galen a withering look, which he deflects with that he hopes is an enchanting grin. He measures his success by the way her blush deepens but stops short when he notices the dark circles under her eyes. She didn't sleep last night. Not that he thought she would. She'd been quiet on the flight home from Destin two nights ago. He didn't pressure her to talk about it with him, mostly because he didn't know what to say once the conversation got started. So many times, he's started to assure her that he doesn't see her as an abomination, but it seems wrong to say it out loud. Like he's willfully disagreeing with the law. But how could those delicious-looking lips and those huge violet eyes be considered an abomination? What's even crazier is that not only does he not consider her an abomination, the fact that she could be a Half-Breed ignited a hope in him he's got no right to feel: Grom would never mate with a half human. At least, Galen doesn't think he would. He glances at Emma, whose silky eyelids don't even flutter in her state of light sleep. When he clears his throat, she startles. "Thank you," she mouths to him as she picks her pencil back up, using the eraser to trace the lines in her textbook as she reads. He acknowledges with a nod. He doesn't want to leave her like this, anxious and tense and out of place in her own beautiful skin.

One morning Jeanette, bucking Daddy on some point, hit on the argument probably every child in the world has used against his or her parents: 'I didn't ask to be born'. Daddy had an answer for it. 'I know you didn't ask to be born, honey, and as your father responsible for gettin' you into the world, I owe you something'. I owe you three hots and a cots, which is to say, I owe you three meals a day and a place to sleep. That's what I'm obliged for, and that's what I'm lookin' to see you get.' He nodded several times, overcome by the seriousness of this obligation, then leaned back in his chair with a curl to his mouth like a villain's mustache. ''Course, nobody says the meals has got to be chicken. S'pose I just give you bread and water? An' s'pose I let you sleep on the floor'? 'No, Daddy'! 'That's all I'm obliged for, honey. Everything else is gratis. Everything else I do for you is 'cause I want to, not 'cause I have to'. For days afterward, because Daddy had a tenacious mind of the sort that doesn't easily turn loose one idea and go on to another, he would set a plate in front of Jeanette with, 'See, I ain't obliged to give you this. I could give you bread and water and soup with just a little bit of fat floatin' in it, just to keep you alive. That's all I'm asked to give you. But you get more, right? You get this nice plateful, and I imagine when it comes to dessert, you'll have some of that, will you? All right, dessert, and all the other good stuff. But just remember, the good stuff I do for you is because I want to, because I'm your daddy and I love you and I want to, not because I have to'. The subtext to this was that it was not enough for us, the children, to behave in minimal ways either, that filial respect and dutifulness might be all that was basically required of us, but the good stuff, like doing well in school and sticking together as a family and paying attention to what Mommy and Daddy were trying to each us, we would do because we loved them and wanted them to love us.

Others may sit around and wait for magic to happen… I like to get up early and work towards my goals and dreams. Every morning I plant the seeds of what the haters call ‘luck.’ Now, I love magic as much as the next guy, but I realized a long time ago that the magic that turns dreams into reality is YOU. When you are inspired by a dream, create a good plan. Creating that plan turns your dream into a goal. Then, take action! Live your life in a way that will bring that dream, that goal, to life. The magic is you.

Tatiasha, my wife, I got cookies from you and Janie, anxious medical advice from Gordon Pasha (tell him you gave me a gallon of silver nitrate), some sharp sticks from Harry (nearly cried). I’m saddling up, I’m good to go. From you I got a letter that I could tell you wrote very late at night. It was filled with the sorts of things a wife of twenty-seven years should not write to her far-away and desperate husband, though this husband was glad and grateful to read and re-read them. Tom Richter saw the care package you sent with the preacher cookies and said, “Wow, man. You must still be doing something right.” I leveled a long look at him and said, “It’s good to know nothing’s changed in the army in twenty years.” Imagine what he might have said had he been privy to the fervent sentiments in your letter. No, I have not eaten any poison berries, or poison mushrooms, or poison anything. The U.S. Army feeds its men. Have you seen a C-ration? Franks and beans, beefsteak, crackers, fruit, cheese, peanut butter, coffee, cocoa, sacks of sugar(!). It’s enough to make a Soviet blockade girl cry. We’re going out on a little scoping mission early tomorrow morning. I’ll call when I come back. I tried to call you today, but the phone lines were jammed. It’s unbelievable. No wonder Ant only called once a year. I would’ve liked to hear your voice though: you know, one word from you before battle, that sort of thing . . . Preacher cookies, by the way, BIG success among war-weary soldiers. Say hi to the kids. Stop teaching Janie back flip dives. Do you remember what you’re supposed to do now? Kiss the palm of your hand and press it against your heart.   Alexander   P.S. I’m getting off the boat at Coconut Grove. It’s six and you’re not on the dock. I finish up, and start walking home, thinking you’re tied up making dinner, and then I see you and Ant hurrying down the promenade. He is running and you’re running after him. You’re wearing a yellow dress. He jumps on me, and you stop shyly, and I say to you, come on, tadpole, show me what you got, and you laugh and run and jump into my arms. Such a good memory. I love you, babe.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert talks about this phenomenon in his 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real,” he writes. “The frontal lobe—the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age—is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.” This time travel into the future—otherwise known as anticipation—accounts for a big chunk of the happiness gleaned from any event. As you look forward to something good that is about to happen, you experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The major difference is that the joy can last much longer. Consider that ritual of opening presents on Christmas morning. The reality of it seldom takes more than an hour, but the anticipation of seeing the presents under the tree can stretch out the joy for weeks. One study by several Dutch researchers, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010, found that vacationers were happier than people who didn’t take holiday trips. That finding is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the timing of the happiness boost. It didn’t come after the vacations, with tourists bathing in their post-trip glow. It didn’t even come through that strongly during the trips, as the joy of travel mingled with the stress of travel: jet lag, stomach woes, and train conductors giving garbled instructions over the loudspeaker. The happiness boost came before the trips, stretching out for as much as two months beforehand as the holiday goers imagined their excursions. A vision of little umbrella-sporting drinks can create the happiness rush of a mini vacation even in the midst of a rainy commute. On some level, people instinctively know this. In one study that Gilbert writes about, people were told they’d won a free dinner at a fancy French restaurant. When asked when they’d like to schedule the dinner, most people didn’t want to head over right then. They wanted to wait, on average, over a week—to savor the anticipation of their fine fare and to optimize their pleasure. The experiencing self seldom encounters pure bliss, but the anticipating self never has to go to the bathroom in the middle of a favorite band’s concert and is never cold from too much air conditioning in that theater showing the sequel to a favorite flick. Planning a few anchor events for a weekend guarantees you pleasure because—even if all goes wrong in the moment—you still will have derived some pleasure from the anticipation. I love spontaneity and embrace it when it happens, but I cannot bank my pleasure solely on it. If you wait until Saturday morning to make your plans for the weekend, you will spend a chunk of your Saturday working on such plans, rather than anticipating your fun. Hitting the weekend without a plan means you may not get to do what you want. You’ll use up energy in negotiations with other family members. You’ll start late and the museum will close when you’ve only been there an hour. Your favorite restaurant will be booked up—and even if, miraculously, you score a table, think of how much more you would have enjoyed the last few days knowing that you’d be eating those seared scallops on Saturday night!

I felt myself full of strength; life seemed to extend more amply before me; this was because I had reverted to the good tiredness of my childhood at Combray on the mornings following days on which we had taken the Guermantes walk. Poets make out that we recapture for a moment the self that we were long ago when we enter some house or garden in which we used to live in our youth. But these are most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in disappointment as in success. The fixed places, contemporary with different years, it is in ourselves that we should rather seek to find them. This is where the advantage comes in, to a certain extent, of great exhaustion followed by a good night’s rest.

There is something in the contemplation of the mode in which America has been settled, that, in a noble breast, should forever extinguish the prejudices of national dislikes. Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim her for their own. You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world. Be he Englishman, Frenchman, German, Dane, or Scot; the European who scoffs at an American, calls his own brother Raca, and stands in danger of the judgment. We are not a narrow tribe of men, with a bigoted Hebrew nationality—whose blood has been debased in the attempt to ennoble it, by maintaining an exclusive succession among ourselves. No: our blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we may claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother. For who was our father and our mother? Or can we point to any Romulus and Remus for our founders? Our ancestry is lost in the universal paternity; and Caesar and Alfred, St. Paul and Luther, and Homer and Shakespeare are as much ours as Washington, who is as much the world's as our own. We are the heirs of all time, and with all nations we divide our inheritance. On this Western Hemisphere all tribes and people are forming into one federated whole; and there is a future which shall see the estranged children of Adam restored as to the old hearthstone in Eden. The other world beyond this, which was longed for by the devout before Columbus' time, was found in the New; and the deep-sea-lead, that first struck these soundings, brought up the soil of Earth's Paradise. Not a Paradise then, or now; but to be made so, at God's good pleasure, and in the fullness and mellowness of time. The seed is sown, and the harvest must come; and our children's children, on the world's jubilee morning, shall all go with their sickles to the reaping. Then shall the curse of Babel be revoked, a new Pentecost come, and the language they shall speak shall be the language of Britain. Frenchmen, and Danes, and Scots; and the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the regions round about; Italians, and Indians, and Moors; there shall appear unto them cloven tongues as of fire.

JANUARY 24 He Will Reward You So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return [to God], that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean), that times of refreshing (of recovering from the effects of heat, of reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord. ACTS 3:19 Success principles alone will not work in your life if you don’t spend time with God, allowing His Holy Spirit to be your Counselor and to give you revelation and understanding of what to do each day. But if you flow in God’s plan, you will learn to stop trying to figure out how everything will work together for your good. Learn to seek God’s face and not His hand all the time. Then keep your hands open and be ready to receive from Him. God is good; you can trust what He speaks to your heart to do.

On the Craft of Writing:  The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker  You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins Prosperity for Writers: A Writer's Guide to Creating Abundance by Honorée Corder  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield Business for Authors: How To Be An Author Entrepreneur by Joanna Penn  On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark On Mindset:  The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn Vision to Reality: How Short Term Massive Action Equals Long Term Maximum Results by Honorée Corder The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown Mastery by Robert Greene The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy Taking Life Head On: How to Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams by Hal Elrod Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill In

How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity.

Jesus said in Revelation 2, “I have one thing against you, you have left your first love.” The scripture doesn’t say you’ve lost love, the passage says you’ve left your first love. That means you can go get it. You haven’t lost your passion. You just left it. Go get it. You haven’t lost the love for your family; you’ve just left it--now go get it. You haven’t lost that dream; it’s still there in you. You just left it. You have to go get it. Stir up what God put on the inside. Fan the flame. Don’t be just barely alive. God wants you to be really alive. You may have had some setbacks, but this is a new day. Dreams are coming back to life. Your vision is being renewed. Your passion is being restored. Hearts are beating again. Get ready for God’s goodness. Get ready for God’s favor. You can live a life of victory. You can overcome every obstacle. You can accomplish your dreams. You can set new levels for your family. Not only are you able, but I also declare you will become all God created you to be. You will rise to new levels. You will live a blessed, successful, rewarding life. My encouragement is: Don’t settle where you are. You have seeds of greatness on the inside. Put these principles into action each day. Get up in the morning expecting good things, go through the day positive, focused on your vision, running your race, knowing that you are well able. Winning is in your DNA. The most high God breathed His life into you. You’ve got what it takes. This is your time. This is your moment. Shake off doubts, shake off fear and insecurity, and get ready for favor, get ready for increase, get ready for the fullness of your destiny. You can, you will!

Here’s a crash course in the economy,” said Hunter. “Americans get up each morning and go to factories and farms and fire stations and work their whole lives, creating actual products you can hold in your hands. Or some service that benefits. I mean, what the fuck’s that about?” “Work isn’t good?” “It’s the damn workers who crashed the economy.” “I thought it was you,” said Serge. “Don’t be a comedian.” Hunter started counting off on his fingers. “They lost their retirement accounts, their mortgages, their homes, even their jobs. Can’t these assholes do anything right?” “You on the other hand?” “We ended up with all the cash. And then the people turned to the government and went, ‘Holy shit! What happened to all our goddamn money? Do something!’ So the government takes even more money from the workers and—this part is absolutely priceless—they give it all to us again! Now you tell me who’s the success story.” “But what’s so hard about accepting free money?” “That’s exactly what I was thinking when half the country screamed, ‘I’ll kick your fucking ass if you give me health care!’ ” “Sounds too good for words,” said Serge. “It’s good enough for one word,” said Hunter. “Socialism.” Serge pounded the bar with his fist. “Fuck socialism.” “Don’t say that!” Hunter took a swig. “I love socialism.” “You do?” Hunter nodded hard. “Finest word in the English language. Just mention socialism, and everyone gets blinded by rage, takes their eyes off us and prints up T-shirts that insult the president.” Bleadoph raised his hands toward the ceiling in exultation. “Thank God he was elected!” “Forgive my ignorance,” said Serge, “but weren’t the bailouts socialism?” Hunter shook his head. “It’s only socialism if the money goes down, not up.” “A toast,” said Serge. “To socialism!” “To socialism!

March 10 MORNING “In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved.” — Psalm 30:6 “MOAB is settled on his lees, he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel.” Give a man wealth; let his ships bring home continually rich freights; let the winds and waves appear to be his servants to bear his vessels across the bosom of the mighty deep; let his lands yield abundantly: let the weather be propitious to his crops; let uninterrupted success attend him; let him stand among men as a successful merchant; let him enjoy continued health; allow him with braced nerve and brilliant eye to march through the world, and live happily; give him the buoyant spirit; let him have the song perpetually on his lips; let his eye be ever sparkling with joy — and the natural consequence of such an easy state to any man, let him be the best Christian who ever breathed, will be presumption; even David said, “I shall never be moved;” and we are not better than David, nor half so good. Brother, beware of the smooth places of the way; if you are treading them, or if the way be rough, thank God for it. If God should always rock us in the cradle of prosperity; if we were always dandled on the knees of fortune; if we had not some stain on the alabaster pillar; if there were not a few clouds in the sky; if we had not some bitter drops in the wine of this life, we should become intoxicated with pleasure, we should dream “we stand;” and stand we should, but it would be upon a pinnacle; like the man asleep upon the mast, each moment we should be in jeopardy. We bless God, then, for our afflictions; we thank Him for our changes; we extol His name for losses of property; for we feel that had He not chastened us thus, we might have become too secure. Continued worldly prosperity is a fiery trial. “Afflictions, though they seem severe, In mercy oft are sent.

This Compost" Something startles me where I thought I was safest, I withdraw from the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd, I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 2 Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold! The grass of spring covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards, The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead. What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean forever and forever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses, It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

If we wish to make progress in the area of prayer and be sensitized to spiritual things we must fulfill three basic tasks: First, we must be deeply committed to a certain amount of prayer at a certain time every day, without fail. We must fulfill this task, not just as a rule or an obligation, but out of concern for cultivating our relationship with God. This is our salvation and joy. (Our time of prayer can be in the morning and/or evening as the circumstances of our life permit.) Second, as St. Theophan the Recluse says, we must always pray as if we have never prayed before. This means we always approach the mystery of God without expectation or illusion, without letting our past success or failure distract us from our present contact with the Lord. As God can only be found in the present, nostalgia can be harmful to prayer. In addition, imagination4 should never be used when praying as it can potentially be the conduit for demonic energy. Third, we must always be willing to start again no matter how long it has been since we have prayed or what the outcome, good or bad, has been in the past. This also applies to our repentance so that no matter what we have done, seen, thought, or heard, we approach God for forgiveness, in search of our medicine. St. Paul reminds us: “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14), for “a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 50:19 lxx). The

Once people believed her careful documentation, there was an easy answer—since babies are cute and inhibit aggression, something pathological must be happening. Maybe the Abu langur population density was too high and everyone was starving, or male aggression was overflowing, or infanticidal males were zombies. Something certifiably abnormal. Hrdy eliminated these explanations and showed a telling pattern to the infanticide. Female langurs live in groups with a single resident breeding male. Elsewhere are all-male groups that intermittently drive out the resident male; after infighting, one male then drives out the rest. Here’s his new domain, consisting of females with the babies of the previous male. And crucially, the average tenure of a breeding male (about twenty-seven months) is shorter than the average interbirth interval. No females are ovulating, because they’re nursing infants; thus this new stud will be booted out himself before any females wean their kids and resume ovulating. All for nothing, none of his genes passed on. What, logically, should he do? Kill the infants. This decreases the reproductive success of the previous male and, thanks to the females ceasing to nurse, they start ovulating. That’s the male perspective. What about the females? They’re also into maximizing copies of genes passed on. They fight the new male, protecting their infants. Females have also evolved the strategy of going into “pseudoestrus”—falsely appearing to be in heat. They mate with the male. And since males know squat about female langur biology, they fall for it—“Hey, I mated with her this morning and now she’s got an infant; I am one major stud.” They’ll often cease their infanticidal attacks. Despite initial skepticism, competitive infanticide has been documented in similar circumstances in 119 species, including lions, hippos, and chimps. A variant occurs in hamsters; because males are nomadic, any infant a male encounters is unlikely to be his, and thus he attempts to kill it (remember that rule about never putting a pet male hamster in a cage with babies?). Another version occurs among wild horses and gelada baboons; a new male harasses pregnant females into miscarrying. Or suppose you’re a pregnant mouse and a new, infanticidal male has arrived. Once you give birth, your infants will be killed, wasting all the energy of pregnancy. Logical response? Cut your losses with the “Bruce effect,” where pregnant females miscarry if they smell a new male. Thus competitive infanticide occurs in numerous species (including among female chimps, who sometimes kill infants of unrelated females). None of this makes sense outside of gene-based individual selection. Individual selection is shown with heartbreaking clarity by mountain gorillas, my favorite primate. They’re highly endangered, hanging on in pockets of high-altitude rain forest on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are only about a thousand gorillas left, because of habitat degradation, disease caught from nearby humans, poaching, and spasms of warfare rolling across those borders. And also because mountain gorillas practice competitive infanticide. Logical for an individual intent on maximizing the copies of his genes in the next generation, but simultaneously pushing these wondrous animals toward extinction. This isn’t behaving for the good of the species.

It was dusk when Ian returned, and the house seemed unnaturally quiet. His uncle was sitting near the fire, watching him with an odd expression on his face that was half anger, half speculation. Against his will Ian glanced about the room, expecting to see Elizabeth’s shiny golden hair and entrancing face. When he didn’t, he put his gun back on the rack above the fireplace and casually asked, “Where is everyone?” “If you mean Jake,” the vicar said, angered yet more by the way Ian deliberately avoided asking about Elizabeth, “he took a bottle of ale with him to the stable and said he was planning to drink it until the last two days were washed from his memory.” “They’re back, then?” “Jake is back,” the vicar corrected as Ian walked over to the table and poured some Madeira into a glass. “The servingwomen will arrive in the morn. Elizabeth and Miss Throckmorton-Jones are gone, however.” Thinking Duncan meant they’d gone for a walk, Ian flicked a glance toward the front door. “Where have they gone at this hour?” “Back to England.” The glass in Ian’s hand froze halfway to his lips. “Why?” he snapped. “Because Miss Cameron’s uncle has accepted an offer for her hand.” The vicar watched in angry satisfaction as Ian tossed down half the contents of his glass as if he wanted to wash away the bitterness of the news. When he spoke his voice was laced with cold sarcasm. “Who’s the lucky bridegroom?” “Sir Francis Belhaven, I believe.” Ian’s lips twisted with excruciating distaste. “You don’t admire him, I gather?” Ian shrugged. “Belhaven is an old lecher whose sexual tastes reportedly run to the bizarre. He’s also three times her age.” “That’s a pity,” the vicar said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice blank as he leaned back in his chair and propped his long legs upon the footstool in front of him. “Because that beautiful, innocent child will have no choice but to wed that old…lecher. If she doesn’t, her uncle will withdraw his financial support, and she’ll lose that home she loves so much. He’s perfectly satisfied with Belhaven, since he possesses the prerequisites of title and wealth, which I gather are his only prerequisites. That lovely girl will have to wed that old man; she has no way to avoid it.” “That’s absurd,” Ian snapped, draining his glass. “Elizabeth Cameron was considered the biggest success of her season two years ago. It was pubic knowledge she’d had more than a dozen offers. If that’s all he cares about, he can choose from dozens of others.” Duncan’s voice was laced with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “That was before she encountered you at some party or other. Since then it’s been public knowledge that she’s used goods.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “You tell me, Ian,” the vicar bit out. “I only have the story in two parts from Miss Throckmorton-Jones. The first time she spoke she was under the influence of laudanum. Today she was under the influence of what I can only describe as the most formidable temper I’ve ever seen. However, while I may not have the complete story, I certainly have the gist of it, and if half what I’ve heard is true, then it’s obvious that you are completely without either a heart or a conscience! My own heart breaks when I imagine Elizabeth enduring what she has for nearly two years. When I think of how forgiving of you she has been-“ “What did the woman tell you?” Ian interrupted shortly, turning and walking over to the window.

We all go through periods of dryness in our prayers, don’t we? I doubt (but ask your directeur) whether they are necessarily a bad symptom. I sometimes suspect that what we feel to be our best prayers are really our worst; that what we are enjoying is the satisfaction of apparent success, as in executing a dance or reciting a poem. Do our prayers sometimes go wrong because we insist on trying to talk to God when He wants to talk to us? Joy tells me that once, years ago, she was haunted one morning by a feeling that God wanted something of her, a persistent pressure like the nag of a neglected duty. And till mid-morning she kept on wondering what it was. But the moment she stopped worrying, the answer came through as plain as a spoken voice. It was “I don’t want you to do anything. I want to give you something”; and immediately her heart was full of peace and delight. St. Augustine says “God gives where He finds empty hands”. A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. Perhaps these parcels are not always sins or earthly cares, but sometimes our own fussy attempts to worship Him in our way. Incidentally, what most often interrupts my own prayers is not great distractions but tiny ones—things one will have to do or avoid in the course of the next hour. . . . Yes—it is sometimes hard to obey St. Paul’s “Rejoice”. We must try to take life moment by moment. The actual present is usually pretty tolerable, I think, if only we refrain from adding to its burden that of the past and the future. How right Our Lord is about “sufficient to the day”. Do even pious people in their reverence for the more radiantly divine element in His sayings, sometimes attend too little to their sheer practical common-sense? . . . Let us by all means pray for one another: it is perhaps the only form of “work for re-union” which never does anything but good. God bless you.

How Could You Not - for Jane Kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower visible against the firs douses the crocuses. We knew it would happen one day this week. Now, when I learn you have died, I go to the open door and look across at New Hampshire and see that there, too, the sun is bright and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon; and I think: How could it not have been today? In another room, Keri Te Kanawa is singing the Laudate Dominum of Mozart, very faintly, as if in the past, to those who once sat in the steel seat of the old mowing machine, cheerful descendent of the scythe of the grim reaper, and drew the cutter bars little reciprocating triangles through the grass to make the stalks lie down in sunshine. Could you have walked in the dark early this morning and found yourself grown completely tired of the successes and failures of medicine, of your year of pain and despair remitted briefly now and then by hope that had that leaden taste? Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it and see that, now, it was not wrong to die and that, on dying, you would leave your beloved in a day like paradise? Near sunrise did you loosen your hold a little? How could you not already have felt blessed for good, having these last days spoken your whole heart to him, who spoke his whole heart to you, so that in the silence he would not feel a single word was missing? How could you not have slipped into a spell, in full daylight, as he lay next to you, with his arms around you, as they have been, it must have seemed, all your life? How could your cheek not press a moment to his cheek, which presses itself to yours from now on? How could you not rise and go, with all that light at the window, those arms around you, and the sound, coming or going, hard to say, of a single-engine plane in the distance that no one else hears?

One cannot erase from a human being's soul those actions which his ancestors loved most and carried out most steadfastly: whether they were, for example, industrious savers attached to a writing table and money box, modest and bourgeois in their desires, as well as modest in their virtues, or whether they were accustomed to live giving orders from morning until night, fond of harsh entertainment and, along with that, perhaps of even harsher duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, they had at some time or other once sacrificed the old privileges of their birth and possessions in order to live entirely for their faith ― their "God" ― as men of an unrelenting and delicate conscience, which blushes when confronted with any compromise. It is in no way possible that a man does not possess in his body the characteristics and preferences of his parents and forefathers, no matter what appearance might say to the contrary. This is the problem of race. If we know something about the parents, then we may draw a conclusion about the child: some unpleasant excess or other, some lurking envy, a crude habit of self-justification ―as these three together have at all times made up the essential type of the rabble― something like that must be passed onto the child as surely as corrupt blood, and with the help of the best education and culture people will succeed only in deceiving others about such heredity. And nowadays what else does education and culture want! In our age, one very much of the people - I mean to say our uncouth age ―"education" and "culture" must basically be the art of deception― to mislead about the origin of the inherited rabble in one's body and soul. Today an educator who preached truthfulness above everything else and constantly shouted at his students "Be true! Be natural! Act as you really are!" ― even such a virtuous and true-hearted jackass would after some time learn to take hold of that furca [pitchfork] of Horace, in order to naturam expellere [drive out nature]. With what success? "Rabble" usque recurret [always returns].

But if the same man is in a quiet corner of a bar, drinking alone, he will get more depressed. Now there’s nothing to distract him. Drinking puts you at the mercy of your environment. It crowds out everything except the most immediate experiences.2 Here’s another example. One of the central observations of myopia theory is that drunkenness has its greatest effect in situations of “high conflict”—where there are two sets of considerations, one near and one far, that are in opposition. So, suppose that you are a successful professional comedian. The world thinks you are very funny. You think you are very funny. If you get drunk, you don’t think of yourself as even funnier. There’s no conflict over your hilariousness that alcohol can resolve. But suppose you think you are very funny and the world generally doesn’t. In fact, whenever you try to entertain a group with a funny story, a friend pulls you aside the next morning and gently discourages you from ever doing it again. Under normal circumstances, the thought of that awkward conversation with your friend keeps you in check. But when you’re drunk? The alcohol makes the conflict go away. You no longer think about the future corrective feedback regarding your bad jokes. Now it is possible for you to believe that you are actually funny. When you are drunk, your understanding of your true self changes. This is the crucial implication of drunkenness as myopia. The old disinhibition idea implied that what was revealed when someone got drunk was a kind of stripped-down, distilled version of their sober self—without any of the muddying effects of social nicety and propriety. You got the real you. As the ancient saying goes, In vino veritas: “In wine there is truth.” But that’s backward. The kinds of conflicts that normally keep our impulses in check are a crucial part of how we form our character. All of us construct our personality by managing the conflict between immediate, near considerations and more complicated, longer-term considerations. That is what it means to be ethical or productive or responsible. The good parent is someone who is willing to temper their own immediate selfish needs (to be left alone, to be allowed to sleep) with longer-term goals (to raise a good child). When alcohol peels away those longer-term constraints on our behavior, it obliterates our true self. So who were the Camba, in reality? Heath says their society was marked by a singular lack of “communal expression.” They were itinerant farmworkers. Kinship ties were weak. Their daily labor tended to be solitary, the hours long.

Ah! you cliques of the city!—don’t you know you had forebears with handlebar mustaches, who came down to the river in the morning bearing masts and booms on their shoulders? who killed their own bulls with a mighty club? who made their own clothes and tilled their own earth? For a million of your clever fashionable phrases, would you exchange one single such accomplishment? I know I would—and Oh God but I’m just as futile as you are, you city vermin; I too am vermin, vermin trying to struggle back to manhood, with small success. Here is our second illuminative nugget, with no emotions this time: that the fear of the family album is pursuant to the city’s general fear of time and particularly of the past (“Oh the stupid Victorian 19th Century!” they keep crying, as though Victorianism were the whole sum of that great century). Fear of the past is in the city, thus a love, a frantic need of the present—with all the hedonistic overtones involved, the psychological doctrines of “alertness” and the so-called liberation of sexuality: in other words, giving the moment over to the dictates of sexuality (divorce is such a dictate) and leaving time, the future—which is to them equivalent to the past, as a moral factor rather than a hedonistic factor of the “pulsing present”—leaving the future to the dogs, childless marriages, or one-child “families,” broken-up families, and thus leaving the future of mankind and the race to the dogs: to the destruction at the hands of a society’s inward atom bomb of organic-familial-societal disintegration: in short, the end of a race, as in Rome. This fear of reaching back into the past, into lineality and tradition, and of extending similarly forward into the future, is like a plant drying up, dying. Where I say this, they speak of the “reality of the moment” and the danger of suppressing the urges of the moment for any reason—but I find good reason if it is to spell the continuation of our own cultural mankind. Perhaps that’s what they don’t want, like children who resent all brothers and sisters burgeoning in their mother’s womb, resenting the future after them, feeling they should be the last, final men, that none must follow—a childish emotion. But to give oneself over to childish emotions is the aim of these city intellectuals, they abstrusely find much to “scientifically” substantiate this desire in the cult of psychoanalysis and its sub-cults, the Orgone “Institute” for one splendid example, and so they go ahead blithely, and I am not the one to oppose their concepts, their march off the ship’s plank—since I am marching to a plank of my own, since I do not wish to be reviled as a neurotic and an atavistic neo-fascist, since the other night, when mentioning these objections of mine, a city intellectual had apoplexy right before me. Oh

We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends. In this condition of apprehensive sobriety we are able to see that the contents of literature, art, music—even in some measure of divinity and school metaphysics—are not sophistry and illusion, but simply those elements of experience which scientists chose to leave out of account, for the good reason that they had no intellectual methods for dealing with them. In the arts, in philosophy, in religion men are trying—doubtless, without complete success—to describe and explain the non-measurable, purely qualitative aspects of reality. Since the time of Galileo, scientists have admitted, sometimes explicitly but much more often by implication, that they are incompetent to discuss such matters. The scientific picture of the world is what it is because men of science combine this incompetence with certain special competences. They have no right to claim that this product of incompetence and specialization is a complete picture of reality. As a matter of historical fact, however, this claim has constantly been made. The successive steps in the process of identifying an arbitrary abstraction from reality with reality itself have been described, very fully and lucidly, in Burtt’s excellent “Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science"; and it is therefore unnecessary for me to develop the theme any further. All that I need add is the fact that, in recent years, many men of science have come to realize that the scientific picture of the world is a partial one—the product of their special competence in mathematics and their special incompetence to deal systematically with aesthetic and moral values, religious experiences and intuitions of significance. Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag. Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed—and the belief often caused them considerable distress—that the product of their special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total experience. The masses, on the contrary, have just reached the point where the ancestors of today’s scientists were standing two generations back. They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world. To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they turn to such doctrines as nationalism, fascism and revolutionary communism. Philosophically and scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every community, they have this great merit: they attribute the meaning and value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular part of the world in which the believers happen to be living.

a serious contender for my book of year. I can't believe I only discovered Chris Carter a year ago and I now consider him to be one of my favourite crime authors of all time. For that reason this is a difficult review to write because I really want to show just how fantastic this book is. It's a huge departure from what we are used to from Chris, this book is very different from the books that came before. That said it could not have been more successful in my opinion. After five books of Hunter trying to capture a serial killer it makes sense to shake things up a bit and Chris has done that in best possible way. By allowing us to get inside the head of one of the most evil characters I've ever read about. It is also the first book based on real facts and events from Chris's criminal psychology days and that makes it all the more shocking and fascinating. Chris Carter's imagination knows no bounds and I love it. The scenes, the characters, whatever he comes up with is both original and mind blowing and that has never been more so than with this book. I feel like I can't even mention the plot even just a little bit. This is a book that should be read in the same way that I read it: with my heart in my mouth, my eyes unblinking and in a state of complete obliviousness to the world around me while I was well and truly hooked on this book. This is addictive reading at its absolute best and I was devastated when I turned the very last page. Robert Hunter, after the events of the last few books is looking forward to a much needed break in Hawaii. Before he can escape however his Captain calls him to her office. Arriving, Hunter recognises someone - one of the most senior members of the FBI who needs his help. They have in custody one of the strangest individuals they have ever come across, a man who is more machine than human and who for days has uttered not a single word. Until one morning he utters seven: 'I will only speak to Robert Hunter'. The man is Hunter's roommate and best friend from college, Lucien Folter, and found in the boot of his car are two severed and mutilated heads. Lucien cries innocence and Hunter, a man incredibly difficult to read or surprise is played just as much as the reader is by Lucien. There are a million and one things I want to say but I just can't. You really have to discover how this story unfolds for yourself. In this book we learn so much more about Hunter and get inside his head even further than we have before. There's a chapter that almost brought me to tears such is the talent of Chris to connect the reader with Hunter. This is a character like no other and he is now one of my favourite detectives of all time. We go back in time and learn more about Hunter when he was younger, and also when he was in college with Lucien. Lucien is evil. The scenes depicted in this book are some of the most graphic I've ever read and you know what, I loved it. After five books of some of the scariest and goriest scenes I've ever read I wondered whether Chris could come up with something even worse (in a good way), but trust me, he does. This book is horrifying, terrifying and near impossible to put down until you reach its conclusion. I spent my days like a zombie and my nights practically giving myself paper cuts turning the pages. If when reading this book you think you have an idea of where it will go, prepare to be wrong. I've learnt never to underestimate Chris, keeping readers on their toes he takes them on an absolute rollercoaster of a ride with the twistiest of turns and the biggest of drops you will finish this book reeling. I am on a serious book hangover, what book can I read next that can even compare to this? I have no idea but if you are planning on reading An Evil Mind I cannot reccommend it enough. Not only is this probably my book of the year it is probably the best crime fiction book I have ever read. An exaggeration you might say but my opinion is my own and this real

On the first day of the meeting that would become known as the United States Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph of Virginia kicked off the proceedings. Addressing his great fellow Virginian General George Washington, victorious hero of the War of Independence, who sat in the chair, Randolph hoped to convince delegates sent by seven, so far, of the thirteen states, with more on the way, to abandon the confederation formed by the states that had sent them—the union that had declared American independence from England and won the war—and to replace it with another form of government. “Our chief danger,” Randolph announced, “arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions.” This was in May of 1787, in Philadelphia, in the same ground-floor room of the Pennsylvania State House, borrowed from the Pennsylvania assembly, where in 1776 the Continental Congress had declared independence. Others in the room already agreed with Randolph: James Madison, also of Virginia; Robert Morris of Pennsylvania; Gouverneur Morris of New York and Pennsylvania; Alexander Hamilton of New York; Washington. They wanted the convention to institute a national government. As we know, their effort was a success. We often say the confederation was a weak government, the national government stronger. But the more important difference has to do with whom those governments acted on. The confederation acted on thirteen state legislatures. The nation would act on all American citizens, throughout all the states. That would be a mighty change. To persuade his fellow delegates to make it, Randolph was reeling off a list of what he said were potentially fatal problems, urgently in need, he said, of immediate repair. He reiterated what he called the chief threat to the country. “None of the constitutions”—he meant those of the states’ governments—“have provided sufficient checks against the democracy.” The term “democracy” could mean different things, sometimes even contradictory things, in 1787. People used it to mean “the mob,” which historians today would call “the crowd,” a movement of people denied other access to power, involving protest, riot, what recently has been called occupation, and often violence against people and property. But sometimes “democracy” just meant assertive lawmaking by a legislative body staffed by gentlemen highly sensitive to the desires of their genteel constituents. Men who condemned the working-class mob as a democracy sometimes prided themselves on being “democratical” in their own representative bodies. What Randolph meant that morning by “democracy” is clear. When he said “our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions,” and “none of the constitutions have provided sufficient checks against the democracy,” he was speaking in a context of social and economic turmoil, pervading all thirteen states, which the other delegates were not only aware of but also had good reason to be urgently worried about. So familiar was the problem that Randolph would barely have had to explain it, and he didn’t explain it in detail. Yet he did say things whose context everyone there would already have understood.

Sometimes the best way to relax, unwind, and get everything straightened out... is to curl up with a good book. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Give something of yourself to the day... even if it’s just a smile to someone walking the other way. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Even if you can’t just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day, and you can keep shortening the distance between the two of you. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Rest assured that, whenever you need them, your guardian angels are great about working overtime. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Never forget what a treasure you are. That special person in the mirror may not always get to hear all the compliments you so sweetly deserve, but you are so worthy of such an abundance... of friendship, joy, and love. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady I love that I get to wake up every morning in a world that has people like you in it. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady Be someone who doesn’t make your guardian angel work too hard or worry too much. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Each day is a blank page in the diary of your life. Every day, you’re given a chance to determine what the words will say and how the story will unfold. The more rewarding you can make each page, the more amazing the entire book will be. And I would love for you to write a masterpiece. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Practice your tree pose. I want you to have a goal of finding a way to bring everything in your life into balance. Let the roots of all your dreams go deep. Let the hopes of all your tomorrows grow high. Bend, but don’t break. Take the seasons as they come. Stick up for yourself. And reach for the sky. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Remember that a new morning is good medicine... and one of the joys of life is realizing that you have the ability to make this a really great day. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Find comfort in knowing that “rising above” is something you can always find a way to do. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Look up “onward” in the thesaurus and utilize every one of those synonyms whenever you’re wondering which direction to go in. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Don’t judge yourself – love yourself. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! If you have a choice between a la-di-da life and an ooh-la-la! one, well... you know what to do. Choose the one that requires you to dust off your dancing shoes. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Write out your own definition of success. Fill it with a mix of stardust and wishes and down-to-earth things, and provide all the insight you can give it. Imagine what it takes to have a really happy, rewarding life. And then go out... and live it. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life!

Thunderbolts," Beatrix exclaimed, entering the library where Leo had been waiting, "I can't go with you to the ruins after all. I've just checked on Lucky, and she's about to have her babies. I can't leave her at such a time." Leo smiled quizzically, replacing a book on a shelf. "Who's Lucky?" "Oh, I forgot you hadn't met her. She's a three-legged cat who used to belong to the cheesemaker in the village. The poor thing got her paw caught in a rat trap, and it had to be amputated. And now that she's no longer a good mouser, the cheesemaker gave her to me. He never even named her, can you imagine?" "Given what happened to her, the name 'Lucky' is something of a misnomer, isn't it?" "I thought it might improve her fortunes." "I'm sure it will," Leo said, amused. Beatrix's passion for helping vulnerable creatures had always worried and touched the Hathaways in equal measure. They all recognized that Beatrix was the most unconventional person in the family. Beatrix was always sought after at London social events. She was a pretty girl, if not classically beautiful, with her blue eyes, dark hair, and tall, slender figure. Gentlemen were attracted by her freshness and charm, unaware that she showed the same patient interest to hedgehogs, field mice, and misbehaving spaniels. And when it came time for active courtship, men reluctantly left Beatrix's engaging company and turned to more conventional misses. With each successive season, her chances at marriage diminished. Beatrix didn't seem to care. At the age of nineteen- nearly twenty- she had yet to fall in love. It was universally agreed among the Hathaways that few men would be able to understand or handle her. She was a force of nature, unhampered by conventional rules.

Keep the right perspective Some people would love to have your problems. They would gladly trade places with you. They would love to have the job that frustrates you. They would love to sit in traffic in that car you don’t like. They would love to have your husband, who gets on your nerves. They would love to live in the house you think is too small. You may be thinking, “As soon as I get out of this neighborhood, then I’m going to be happy.” Instead, why don’t you choose to be happy right where you are? Choose to have a good attitude without thinking about what you have or don’t have. Your happiness is all about your approach to life. One man gets up and says, “Good morning, Lord.” Another man gets up and says, “Oh Lord, it’s morning.” Which person are you? You control what kind of day you’re having. You’re as happy as you want to be. It’s not your circumstances that keep you unhappy. It’s how you respond to them. A lot of times we’re making ourselves unhappy. You can’t change the traffic, the weather, or how others treat you. If your happiness is based on everything going your way and everybody treating you right, you will be frustrated. Before you leave the house, you need to make up your mind to stay positive and enjoy the day no matter what comes your way. You have to decide ahead of time. That’s what it says in Colossians 3:2, “Set your mind on the higher things and keep it set.” The higher things are the positive things. When you get out of bed in the morning, you need to set your mind for victory. Set your mind for success. Have the attitude: “This is going to be a great day. God’s favor is on my life. I’m excited about my future.” When your mind is set as positive, hopeful, and expecting good things, that’s when you’ll go places you’ve never dreamed. New doors will open. New opportunities, and the right people will come across your path. But if you don’t set your mind, negative thoughts will set it for you. You can’t start the day in neutral. If you’re passive, lying in bed, negative thoughts like these will come: “You’ll never accomplish your dreams. You’ll never get married. You’re too old. You’ll never get well. Nothing good ever happens to you. You’ll never get out of debt.

Our expectations set the limits for our lives. If you expect little, you’re going to receive little. If you don’t anticipate things to get better, then they won’t. But if you expect more favor, more good breaks, a promotion, and an increase, then you will see new levels of favor and success. Every morning when you wake up, you should declare, “Something good is going to happen to me today.” You have to set the tone at the beginning of each day. Then all through the day you should have this attitude of expectancy. Like a little child waiting to open a gift, you should be on the lookout, thinking, “I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen”--not passive, but actively expecting. Too many people drag around, thinking, “Nothing good ever happens to me.” Instead, start looking for good breaks. Expect to be at the right place at the right time. Expect your dreams to come to pass. Expect to be a winner. Don’t walk into a room anticipating people to not like you. Don’t go to the store believing that you won’t find what you need. Don’t interview for a job assuming not to get it. Your expectation is your faith at work. When you expect good breaks, expect people to like you, or expect to have a great year, then you’re releasing your faith. That’s what allows good things to happen. But your expectations work in both directions. If you get up in the morning and expect it to be a lousy day and expect no breaks and expect people to be unfriendly, then you’ll draw that in. Your faith is working. The problem is you’re using it in the wrong direction.

ON THE morning of April 6, 2007, I was lying on the floor of my home office in a pool of blood. On my way down, my head had hit the corner of my desk, cutting my eye and breaking my cheekbone. I had collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep. In the wake of my collapse, I found myself going from doctor to doctor, from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion. There wasn’t, but doctors’ waiting rooms, it turns out, were good places for me to ask myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living.

Part of the Native ethos is not to compete or flaunt your success: it could make someone less able feel bad. It’s fine to be on a hockey team, but it’s insensitive to cheer for your own team since it could offend the other team.

Nick had looked up the word narcissism when his father accused his mother of being the poster child for that. He’d agreed with his dad’s armchair diagnosis, but that morning he felt like he was getting the full effect of the definition. The symptoms went through his mind like he was listening to a podcast—an extreme sense of self-importance and an inflated ego. Thoughts and fantasies of power, success, intelligence, and high status. Only associating with folks they consider to be special or in good social standing. Seeking constant attention and an entitled attitude.

There is no question that Benedek played his hand badly. He failed to decisively attack the Prussians when they were at their weakest, while wending their way through the passes of the Giant Mountains. He then failed to take advantage of his initial success at Koniggratz on the morning of July 3. Until the early afternoon, the Austrians had a large numerical advantage over their Prussian opponents. If Benedek had gambled on an all-out offensive, he might have been able to crush the Elbe Army and the First Army before the Second Army arrived. Failing that, Benedek should have retreated while the going was still good. Instead he stayed in place, leaving his right flank dangerously exposed, and suffered the consequences. Moltke later commented that "no one, of course, dreamed" that the enemy would open themselves up in this fashion.

If you had to boil down the Wal-Mart system to one single idea, it would probably be communication, because it is one of the real keys to our success. We do it in so many ways, from the Saturday morning meeting to the very simple phone call, to our satellite system. The necessity for good communication in a big company like this is so vital it can’t be overstated. What good is figuring out a better way to sell beach towels if you aren’t going to tell everybody in your company about it?

When things are good I feel like I’ll get punished. I’m a monster and people will find that out, and even if they don’t then bad things will happen because monsters don’t deserve success.” Then she hesitated and added, “Or happiness.

Like the morning moon in the early light, our hopes light up both hard times and good times, guiding us to success.

Deprive a cat of sleep and it would die in two weeks. Deprive a human and he would become psychotic. His work was killing people. How was he supposed to frighten these guys? Run up behind them in a halloween mask and shout boo? He never saw the point of views -- what did it matter if it was an ocean or a brick wall you were looking at? People travelled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to commit suicide someplace with a beautiful view. Did a view matter when oblivion beckoned? They could put him in a garbage bin after he was gone, for all he cared. That's all the human race was anyway. Garbage with attitude. A cutting word is worse than a bowstring. A cut may heal but a cut of the tongue does not. The Sakawa students were all from poor, underprivileged backgrounds. Sakawa was a mix of religious juju and modern internet technology. They were taught, in structured classes, the art of online fraud as well as arcane African rituals -- which included animal sacrifice -- to have a voodoo effect on their victims, ensuring the success of each fraud. of which there was a wide variety. The British Empire spend five hundred years plundering the world. The word is 'thanks'. 'That's what it is, Roy! He won't come out, he has locked the doors! What if he self-harms, Roy! I mean -- what if he kills himself?' 'I will have to take him off my Christmas list.' "Any chance you can recover any of it?' 'You sitting near a window, Gerry?' 'Near a window? Sure, right by a window?' 'Can you see the sky?' 'Uh-huh. Got a clear view.' 'See any pigs flying past?' To dream of death is good for those in fear, for the death have no more fears. '...Cleo took me to the opera once. I spent the whole time praying for a fat lady to come on stage and start singing. Or a heart attack --whichever come sooner.' '..there is something strongly powerful -- almost magnetic -- about internet romances. A connection that is far stronger than a traditional meeting of two people. Maybe because on the internet you can lie all the time, each person gives the other their good side. It's intoxicating. That's one of the things which makes it so dangerous -- and such easy pickings for fraudsters.' He was more than a little pleased that he was about to ruin his boss's morning -- and, with a bit of luck, his entire day. ..a guy who had been born angry and had just got even angrier with each passing year. '...Then at some point in the future, I'll probably die in an overcrowded hospital corridor with some bloody hung-over medical student jumping up and down on my chest because they couldn't find a defibrillator. 'Give me your hand, bro,' the shorter one said. 'That one, the right one, yeah.' On the screen the MasterChef contestant said, 'Now with a sharp knife...' Jules de Copland drove away from Gatwick Airport in.a new car, a small Kia, hired under a different name and card, from a different rental firm, Avis. 'I was talking about her attitude. But I'll tell you this, Roy. The day I can't say a woman -- or a man -- is plug ugly, that's the day I want to be taken out and shot.' It seems to me the world is in a strange place where everyone chooses to be offended all the time. 'But not too much in the way of brains,' GlennBranson chipped in. 'Would have needed the old Specialist Search Unite to find any trace of them.' 'Ever heard of knocking on a door?' 'Dunno that film -- was it on Netflix?' 'One word, four letters. Begins with an S for Sierra, ends with a T for Tango. Or if you'd like the longest version, we've been one word, six letters, begins with F for Foxtrot, ends with D for Delta.' No Cop liked entering a prison. In general there was a deep cultural dislike of all police officers by the inmates. And every officer entering.a prison, for whatever purposes, was always aware that if a riot kicked off while they were there, they could be both an instant hostage and a prime target for violence.

Deprive a cat of sleep and it would die in two weeks. Deprive a human and he would become psychotic. His work was killing people. How was he supposed to frighten these guys? Run up behind them in a halloween mask and shout boo? He never saw the point of views -- what did it matter if it was an ocean or a brick wall you were looking at? People travelled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to commit suicide someplace with a beautiful view. Did a view matter when oblivion beckoned? They could put him in a garbage bin after he was gone, for all he cared. That's all the human race was anyway. Garbage with attitude. A cutting word is worse than a bowstring. A cut may heal but a cut of the tongue does not. The Sakawa students were all from poor, underprivileged backgrounds. Sakawa was a mix of religious juju and modern internet technology. They were taught, in structured classes, the art of online fraud as well as arcane African rituals -- which included animal sacrifice -- to have a voodoo effect on their victims, ensuring the success of each fraud. of which there was a wide variety. The British Empire spend five hundred years plundering the world. The word is 'thanks'. 'That's what it is, Roy! He won't come out, he has locked the doors! What if he self-harms, Roy! I mean -- what if he kills himself?' 'I will have to take him off my Christmas list.' "Any chance you can recover any of it?' 'You sitting near a window, Gerry?' 'Near a window? Sure, right by a window?' 'Can you see the sky?' 'Uh-huh. Got a clear view.' 'See any pigs flying past?' To dream of death is good for those in fear, for the death have no more fears. '...Cleo took me to the opera once. I spent the whole time praying for a fat lady to come on stage and start singing. Or a heart attack --whichever come sooner.' '..there is something strongly powerful -- almost magnetic -- about internet romances. A connection that is far stronger than a traditional meeting of two people. Maybe because on the internet you can lie all the time, each person gives the other their good side. It's intoxicating. That's one of the things which makes it so dangerous -- and such easy pickings for fraudsters.' He was more than a little pleased that he was about to ruin his boss's morning -- and, with a bit of luck, his entire day. ..a guy who had been born angry and had just got even angrier with each passing year. '...Then at some point in the future, I'll probably die in an overcrowded hospital corridor with some bloody hung-over medical student jumping up and down on my chest because they couldn't find a defibrillator. 'Give me your hand, bro,' the shorter one said. 'That one, the right one, yeah.' On the screen the MasterChef contestant said, 'Now with a sharp knife...' Jules de Copland drove away from Gatwick Airport in.a new car, a small Kia, hired under a different name and card, from a different rental firm, Avis. 'I was talking about her attitude. But I'll tell you this, Roy. The day I can't say a woman -- or a man -- is plug ugly, that's the day I want to be taken out and shot.' It seems to me the world is in a strange place where everyone chooses to be offended all the time. 'But not too much in the way of brains,' GlennBranson chipped in. 'Would have needed the old Specialist Search Unite to find any trace of them.' 'Ever heard of knocking on a door?' 'Dunno that film -- was it on Netflix?' 'One word, four letters. Begins with an S for Sierra, ends with a T for Tango. Or if you'd like the longest version, we've been one word, six letters, begins with F for Foxtrot, ends with D for Delta.' No Cop liked entering a prison. In general there was a deep cultural dislike of all police officers by the inmates. And every officer entering.a prison, for whatever purposes, was always aware that if a riot kicked off while they were there, they could be both an instant hostage and a prime target for violence.

A. Change negative self thoughts to positive self thoughts. Stop the self criticism. Life is hard enough, be kind to yourself. Become aware of just how often you make negative comments about yourself that lessen your self esteem. At the end of each day make a Note of the negative comments you made about yourself and make a promise to eliminate these from your thoughts. You know the ones, ’why am I so stupid?’ ‘I just knew I’d get that wrong.’ ‘this is such an ugly dress, shirt’, ‘I’m so fat’, you get the picture. Get rid of these self hurtful thoughts. B. Change your language and you will change how you feel about you! Try this activity. Replace the word ‘try’ with ‘I will do that’; Replace ‘I can’t’ with ‘I can’; Replace ‘I should’ with ‘I will do that’ C. Get Fit! Start an exercise program. Start small but start. The better you look the better you feel about yourself. Check with your doctor or health care provider. D. An Act of Kindness. Try this. You’ll feel good and so will others and it’s contagious. Surprise your secretary, co-worker or friend with a morning coffee, muffin or homemade treat. Treat your kids to a surprise dessert. Leave a note of kind words on a loved one’s pillow. Mail an invite for a lunch/dinner date to friend/partner/spouse. Smile at a senior on the street or grocery store. Email/phone/write a note to a friend or family member you haven’t seen for awhile. E. Take Action Anxiety and fear can keep you from moving forward and cause you to be unsatisfied with yourself. Try this. Next time you have a task to complete, no matter how small, create an action plan. Write down the answers to What, When, How. Now do it! Successfully completing tasks is a great self esteem builder. You feel good when you complete actions, no matter how small. F. Personal Affirmations Practiced daily personal affirmation can increase Self Esteem. Check here.

My life was about me, ever since I was a little kid growing up, everything was about me, what could I get, what could I do, who could I become, and it just centered around myself. But at some point I began drinking, as I graduated college I was already an alcoholic. I was married at the time, I had two children, I had a decent job, but everything was about me, and everything was about my next drink. My wife got tired of it and she divorced me. I went home and there she was in our living room, with two plastic trash bags, and basically all my worldly belongings were in those bags. The day I got kicked out, that was the last day I ever drank. After the divorce went through I took a new job, we became wildly successful in that business. At this point in my life I am single, I am making more money than I ever thought I will make in my life, and everything was going well, but at night when you are by yourself, as much as I thought I hated my wife, I knew inside I loved her. One day I decided to see where my kids where going to church, and I thought it was going to be a cult. (He thought that if he could prove to the judge that his ex-wife had his kids in a cult, he will get full custody.) Again the thought was: “I am getting my kids, for me”. It wasn’t about what was best for them, it’s about what I want. That morning I had an encounter with God, I heard the Gospel like I never heard it before, and ended up giving my life to Jesus. And when I did that it was like my whole life, my view was just central, it was all about me, but when I gave my life to Christ that lens got pulled away and all of a sudden there’s a range of beautiful mountains, which represented the best of my life and the rest of my life. And everything started to change immediately then, and I started to think about my children, and my ex-wife, what would be good for my ex-wife? Isn’t that strange? So kind of a long story short, we ended up getting remarried 6 months later, and we haven’t looked back since. Now our hearts are about serving other people, it’s about serving God, it’s about serving Jesus, it’s about helping others. (At that time he had no idea how God was about to transform his life or the adventure on which he was about to take him, his own escape from selfishness.) And I believe with all my heart, that the Christian life should be the greatest adventure on the planet and if we as Christians do not live it that way, and do not experience that, then I am gonna challenge you and say: Who’s your mind on?

He was my childhood best friend. We grew up next to each other. He loved football as much as I did, and he was better at it than I was.” “Stop.” I found it impossible to believe that any living player could be better than Asher. Sorry, Vincent. Yet another, albeit silent, betrayal of my brother. But I’d worry about that later. “It’s true,” Asher said. “He was better compared to how I played back then, at least. But whereas I couldn’t wait to sign with a club, he refused. Said he wasn’t interested in playing professionally.” “Why?” “He was afraid. Football isn’t a steady career, and he didn’t want the pressures that came with it. He hated being in the spotlight. He was worried that if he failed, he’d do so publicly and humiliate himself. So instead of living his dream, he let me live it for him.” “He must be proud of your success.” Proud or bitter, but I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt. “We don’t exactly talk anymore.” Asher sounded distant. I sensed there was more to the story, so I remained quiet. I was right. “I signed with Holchester when I was seventeen. I was so damn excited. We went out to celebrate, but I left early because I had a meeting with Holchester’s manager the next morning. Teddy chose to stay, and I remember thinking, good for him. He needed to loosen up a bit, you know?” Asher’s laugh sounded hollow. “We went to a pub in a seedier part of town since it was the only one that didn’t ID us since we were underage. Teddy left maybe an hour after I did. He was on his way to the bus stop when he got mugged.” I sucked in a sharp breath, already dreading the conclusion to the story. “It must’ve been the liquid courage, but Teddy refused to give up his wallet. He got into a fight with the mugger, who stabbed him six times and ran away. Teddy didn’t even make it to the hospital.” I saw it coming, but that didn’t stop my lurch of shock. Stabbed six times. Jesus. “One minute, he was there. The next, he was gone. And all these years, I can’t help but think…would he be alive if I’d stayed with him? If I’d insisted he leave when I did?” Asher’s voice thickened. “He wouldn’t have been there in the first place if it weren’t for me.

The next morning, while everyone else sat in the waiting area, Mia and I met with the doctor. “Well, I have good news and bad news,” Dr. Genecov said. “The bad news is that she needs this surgery, and we need to get it on the books right now. The good news is that I’ve worked with a company to invent a new device. Instead of using the halo, I can now do everything internally.” What? Did I just hear what I think I heard? He continued talking, but I honestly didn’t hear anything for the next few seconds while I tried to process this new information. Seriously? I can’t believe this! I thought. Where did this come from? I knew he was working on a better bone graft procedure before we needed it, but this just came out of nowhere! I tried my best to hold myself together. All I wanted to do was call Jase and tell him this news. Actually, I wanted to climb the nearest mountain (if there were mountains in Dallas) and shout it from the top of my lungs! After thanking him profusely, Mia and I walked down the hall for our appointment with Dr. Sperry. “Do you know what you just avoided?” Dr. Sperry asked, grinning from ear to ear. “A shaved head, the intensive care unit for a week, and a much longer recovery period.” That was it. I couldn’t hold back any longer and let my tears flow. Mia looked at me in surprise. If I was embarrassing her, I didn’t care. It was for a good reason. “Dr. Genecov has been working hard to perfect this procedure, and he has done it one time so far.” She looked right at Mia and said, “And I’m convinced he did that one to get ready for you.” Mia smiled and said, “Cool.” Mia had enjoyed her honeymoon period. She felt no stress or anxiety about the future, which was a great blessing. I was thankful that I had not told her about the distraction surgery and glad that my eleven-year-old daughter didn’t understand all that she had been spared because of this development. When I filled in my mom, Bonny, and Tori on this unexpected and exhilarating news, they all gasped, then shouted and hugged me. All I could think of was how grateful I was to my Father in heaven. He had done this. Why? I don’t know. But I knew He had chosen this moment for Dr. Genecov to perfect a new invention that would spare my daughter, at this exact time in her life, the ordeal of a device that would have been surgically screwed into her skull. After getting to the parking lot, I immediately called Jase with this incredible news. Like me, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it. “How many of these has he done?” I hesitated, then said, “One.” “One? He’s done one? I don’t know about this, Missy.” I quickly reminded him of Dr. Genecov’s success in the new bone graft surgery and said, “Babe, I think it’s worth the risk. He’s proven to us just how good he is.” Jase is not one to make a quick decision about anything, but before our phone call ended, he agreed that we should move forward with the surgery.

Into all our lives, in many simple, familiar, homely ways, God infuses this element of joy from the surprises of life, which unexpectedly brighten our days, and fill our eyes with light. He drops this added sweetness into His children's cup, and makes it to run over. The success we were not counting on, the blessing we were not trying after, the strain of music, in the midst of drudgery, the beautiful morning picture or sunset glory thrown in as we pass to or from our daily business, the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than the writer or speaker thought,--these and a hundred others that every one's experience can supply are instances of what I mean. You may call it accident or chance--it often is; you may call it human goodness--it often is; but always, always call it God's love, for that is always in it. These are the overflowing riches of His grace, these are His free gifts. S. LONGFELLOW.

Chris Tarrent, OBE British radio broadcaster and television presenter Chris Tarrant is perhaps best known for his role as host on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? A hugely successful entertainment personality, Chris Tarrant is also active in many charitable causes, including homelessness and disadvantaged children. He was honored with an OBE in 2004 for his extensive work in these areas. The first time I met her I was terribly nervous. I was working on the breakfast show at Capital Radio in London in those days, and I’d been seated next to her at a charity lunch. She’d become the patron of Capital’s charity for needy children in London, and her appearance at our big lunch of the year made it a guaranteed sellout. She was already probably the most famous person in the world, and I was terrified about what on earth I was going to say to her. I needn’t have worried--she immediately put me at ease with an incredibly rude joke about Kermit the Frog. Because she was our patron, we saw a lot of her over the next few years. She was great fun, and brilliant with the kids. She used to listen to my show in the mornings while she was swimming or in the gym, and she’d often say things like “Who on earth was that loopy woman that you had on the phone this morning?” There was a restaurant in Kensington that had a series of alcoves where she’d often go to hide, perhaps with just a detective for company. I remember chatting to her one lunchtime while I was waiting for my boss to join me at my table, and she disappeared round the corner. “Hello, Richard,” I said, when he turned up. “I’ve just been chatting with Lady Di.” “Yes, of course you have,” said Richard. “And there goes a flying pig!” When she reappeared a few moments later and just said, “Good-bye,” on her way out, this big, tough, hard-nosed media executive was absolutely incapable of speech.

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. Just sitting in her private room was fascinating. Her magazines lay on the table, from Vogue to Hello, as well as her newspapers--the Daily Mail at the top of the pile, obviously, if distressingly. After I had spent ten minutes on my own, she swept in, gushing: “I’m so sorry to have kept you, Piers. I hope Paul has been looking after you all right.” And then came what was surely one of the most needless requests of all time: “Would you mind awfully if William joins us for lunch? He’s on an exeat from Eton, and I just thought that given you are a bit younger than most editors, it might be good for both of you to get to know each other.” “I’m sorry, but that would be terribly inconvenient,” I replied sternly. Diana blushed slightly and started a stuttering “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry…” apology, when I burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I think I can stretch to allowing the future king to join us for lunch.” The absurdity of this conversation held no apparent bounds. But before he joined us, Diana wanted a little chat. “How’s your circulation?” she asked. Bloody rampant, I thought, as she nestled into her sofa, radiating a surprisingly high degree of sexual allure. “Oh very healthy, ma’am, thanks to you.” She laughed, a tad insincerely. We discussed her mate Fergie. “Can’t you go a bit easier on her?” Diana pleaded, with genuine concern in those extraordinarily big, expressively deep, blue eyes. “Well, she’s her own worst enemy,” I replied. “Look at this morning’s front pages--I mean, who the hell takes the Concorde the day after the papers reveal she’s 3 million in debt?” “I know, I know,” sighed the Princess, “but she means well; she has a big heart. It’s not easy for her.” We debated the merits of Fergie, or even Diana herself, emigrating away from the media firestorm. “Yes, but to where? I’ve thought about it often, but somebody would find me wherever I went.” And then I saw a flash of real sadness in her face, a desperation almost to have her anonymity back, but knowing it is gone forever. I asked what it was like “being Diana.” “Oh God, let’s face it, even I have had enough of Diana now--and I am Diana.” She screeched with laughter, and I saw her chameleon side. Able to switch so easily from misery to hilarity. “It’s been ridiculous recently, just one thing after another. But I can’t stop the press writing about me, can I? You are hardly going to say ‘Oh, okay then, we’ll leave you alone.’ I would like to have a good break. I meet a lot of ordinary people, and they are always so kind to me. They shout out things like ‘Eh, Di, I know what you’re going through, luv,’ and I laughed and think: ‘If only you really knew. He’s worrying about his allotment or whatever, and I’ve got things like the future of the monarchy on my mind.’” More screeches--she has a great laugh. A really earthy infectious cackle. Like a Sloaney Barbara Windsor.

A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). Ironically, my pastoring skills have almost nothing to do with my success as a pastor! In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time.

June 2012               Dearest Andy, You haven’t changed much over the years. I’m glad we can continue to relate to each other after such a long absence. Times of change had not vanquished my love for you either. You are always in my heart and I’ll continue to cherish your love wherever I am. You haven’t heard the last of Bernard – at one time, he arrived to visit me at Uncle James. I had no idea he was in London when he showed up one afternoon. I had been out running a couple of errands. As I was unlocking the front door, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Bernard was behind me, looking as handsome as when we parted in Belfast. He had grown taller and more mature during our absence. In Ireland he had worked some odd jobs to earn enough money for a one-way plane ticket to London. The only person he knew in London was me. He knew I would not turn him away if he called. Uncle James was in Hong Kong and I was the only one staying in the house; I took the boy in, making him promise that he would have to leave when I moved in 3 weeks to my new lodgings in Ladbroke Grove. He did as promised and was a splendid house guest. When Uncle James returned a week before my move, he was charmed by the adolescent. Bernard made a good impression on Uncle James. The boy had run away from Belfast and planned a fresh start in London. During the course of the 3 weeks, he successfully secured himself as a newspaper delivery boy in the mornings and also worked part-time in a Deli near the house. To top it off, five evenings a week he was a bus boy in an Italian restaurant. Both Uncle James and I were impressed by his industrious tenacity. James decided to help him obtain an apprenticeship with a professional photographer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

If you have been freed from needing success and acclaim to feel good about yourself, you know grace has visited you.

We know that time with God can really make our day rich and meaningful, not to mention successful in ways we never dreamed were possible.

Daily: Think positive. Read positive. Listen positive. Talk positive. Affirm positive. Watch positive. Practice positive. Make yourself positive. To ensure your beingness and attitude are at their best, I suggest you read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Hal emphasizes the importance of a morning routine that sets you up for success each and every day. Left to chance, perhaps you will have a good day, perhaps not. By creating a morning routine, you can set the odds heavily in your favor of having an epically fabulous day. Why not increase the odds you will have a fantastic day, full of energy, hope and enthusiasm? Success starts with attitude.

But the problem isn’t actually that we are sleeping more or worrying about others—these things are necessary and good at times. The problem is that we have a habit, day after day, of not growing—of not reaching the divine potential that we have as a sons and daughters of God. The

I love the story of the salesman who sat looking through the window of a hotel restaurant. Outside raged a blinding snowstorm. “Do you think the roads will be clear enough in the morning to travel?” he asked his waiter. “That depends,” the waiter replied. “Are you on salary or commission?

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. Just sitting in her private room was fascinating. Her magazines lay on the table, from Vogue to Hello, as well as her newspapers--the Daily Mail at the top of the pile, obviously, if distressingly. After I had spent ten minutes on my own, she swept in, gushing: “I’m so sorry to have kept you, Piers. I hope Paul has been looking after you all right.” And then came what was surely one of the most needless requests of all time: “Would you mind awfully if William joins us for lunch? He’s on an exeat from Eton, and I just thought that given you are a bit younger than most editors, it might be good for both of you to get to know each other.” “I’m sorry, but that would be terribly inconvenient,” I replied sternly. Diana blushed slightly and started a stuttering “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry…” apology, when I burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I think I can stretch to allowing the future king to join us for lunch.” The absurdity of this conversation held no apparent bounds. But before he joined us, Diana wanted a little chat. “How’s your circulation?” she asked. Bloody rampant, I thought, as she nestled into her sofa, radiating a surprisingly high degree of sexual allure. “Oh very healthy, ma’am, thanks to you.” She laughed, a tad insincerely. We discussed her mate Fergie. “Can’t you go a bit easier on her?” Diana pleaded, with genuine concern in those extraordinarily big, expressively deep, blue eyes. “Well, she’s her own worst enemy,” I replied. “Look at this morning’s front pages--I mean, who the hell takes the Concorde the day after the papers reveal she’s £3 million in debt?” “I know, I know,” sighed the Princess, “but she means well; she has a big heart. It’s not easy for her.” We debated the merits of Fergie, or even Diana herself, emigrating away from the media firestorm. “Yes, but to where? I’ve thought about it often, but somebody would find me wherever I went.” And then I saw a flash of real sadness in her face, a desperation almost to have her anonymity back, but knowing it is gone forever. I asked what it was like “being Diana.” “Oh God, let’s face it, even I have had enough of Diana now--and I am Diana.” She screeched with laughter, and I saw her chameleon side. Able to switch so easily from misery to hilarity. “It’s been ridiculous recently, just one thing after another. But I can’t stop the press writing about me, can I? You are hardly going to say ‘Oh, okay then, we’ll leave you alone.’ I would like to have a good break. I meet a lot of ordinary people, and they are always so kind to me. They shout out things like ‘Eh, Di, I know what you’re going through, luv,’ and I laughed and think: ‘If only you really knew. He’s worrying about his allotment or whatever, and I’ve got things like the future of the monarchy on my mind.’” More screeches--she has a great laugh. A really earthy infectious cackle. Like a Sloaney Barbara Windsor.

would visit the cultural attaché on Friday afternoon, at his home and on Monday, with a bit of luck, the Consul would extend my passport. I said good bye to my parents on Thursday evening, kissed my Father and wished him a good night. We slept over in Max's house and left Friday morning, as planned. I was received with great friendliness by the attaché and his family and left with some assurance of success.

Olivia gave Emily a syrupy smile. “I couldn’t help but notice you weren’t sitting by Carter Stockton. Has he grown tired of you so quickly? One too many accidents?” Carter jolted. Although he and Emily weren’t exactly speaking, he realized she would now have to answer for his stupid bet. He excused himself from his place in line and skipped speaking to Brother Fossen. Hurrying to Emily’s side, he slipped a possessive arm around her shoulders. “Good morning, Mrs. DeSoto. Did I see that successful husband of yours come in with you this morning?” “H-h-he wasn’t able to make it. He wasn’t feeling well.” “No, I imagine not. I saw him last night, and he seemed to have celebrated quite hard after our win.” Emily elbowed his side, and he bit back a grin.

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. —James 1:26 (KJV) When I was in my twenties, I started going to the opera. An enthusiastic novice, I’d walk joyfully to the lobby for intermission, only to hear the dismissive remarks of the jaded veterans. A fine performance by Pavarotti? “He has no squillo. You really should have heard Corelli in that part.” An incredible high note from Joan Sutherland? “Too bad you couldn’t have heard her twenty years ago.” I’d go back to my seat for the second act, regretting that I wasn’t twenty years older rather than enjoying the singing that night. I’ve tried, with diminishing success as I’ve grown older, to be less of a curmudgeon. But the place I’ve failed utterly has been church. Walking home on Sunday mornings, I’ve recited a litany of complaints. “The music here is terrible. Do you remember the choir at St. So-and-So’s?” “There was no meat in that sermon. Father X was so much more thoughtful.” “Did you see the sneakers the altar server was wearing? We’d never have let that pass at St. Thingummy’s.” Finally, my wife, Julia, had enough. “What are you doing for Lent?” she asked. “Giving up peanut butter, like always,” I answered. “How about giving up all that negativity?” So I tried. Sometimes I’d just keep quiet. Sometimes I’d catch myself mid-complaint. Sometimes I’d even say something positive! And you know what? I found myself praying rather than looking for things I didn’t like. After all, I was there for God’s sake, not my own. You know what else? This Lent I’m going to find something good to say every Sunday. Lord, keep my attention where it really belongs—on You. —Andrew Attaway Digging Deeper: Jl 2:12–13; 1 Pt 5:6

Monitor baths: For some children bathtime winds them up. If that is the case, do it earlier in your routine, or leave it for the morning. For others, it is calming. • Avoid electronics and TV, which can have a reawakening effect on many children. They seem calm and cozied in as they watch TV, but then they are excited when the video is done. Best not to use electronics or TV close to bedtime. • Keep routines short and simple. They should take no more than an hour (at most, if you are including the bath), and thirty minutes is even better. Lengthier routines get children stirred up as they have extra time to anticipate the inevitable separation. • Let them have simple choices. “Would you like to read Curious George first or Goodnight Moon?” Such simple questions give them some, but limited control and keeps you moving forward to bed. • Sing or listen to a lullaby—either can be soothing. Some parents like to add prayers or a quiet review of the day. • Try to create a cozy corner in their room for sleep once your child moves to a bed. Make sure the bed is against a wall, ideally in a corner, and feels like a comforting place. • If one parent is coming home late, do your best not to have it during the good-night routine. For many children, the return of that parent stirs them up. Better that they see you, when they are refreshed, in the morning.

When He Has Lost Vision for Tomorrow Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. PROVERBS 29:18 KJV WHEN YOUR HUSBAND loses his vision for a bright tomorrow, it means he has lost sight of his purpose and his reason to get up in the morning. He has misplaced his sense of God’s calling on his life and his reason to keep fighting the good fight. (Or perhaps he never had a sense of his purpose and calling in the first place.) He may also have lost his reason to keep working and trying. He can even lose his drive to face the day. Having a husband who has lost sight of his future—or your future together—is not a good thing. The Bible says people can’t survive without a vision. That’s why the enemy of our soul comes to steal away the vision we have from God, so that he can kill our hope and destroy our sense of purpose. But your prayers for your husband to have a clear vision for his future and your future together can restore all that and make an enormous difference in his life. Lack of vision happens gradually. It creeps in a day at a time, a thought at a time, a disappointment at a time. And it can happen to anyone. We get too busy. We get discouraged or exhausted. We work too hard for too long. We try to do right, but things keep going wrong. This could be happening to your husband right now without either of you even realizing it. If you’re not certain how your husband feels about the future, ask him and then pray accordingly. If you can tell he has lost his vision, your prayer can help him find it and be able to hear from God again. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would give my husband a clear and strong vision for the future—not only his future, but also our future together as a couple. If the many challenges he has faced, or the disappointments he has experienced, have accumulated enough to take away his sense of hopeful anticipation, I pray You would help him to see that his future is in You and not in outside circumstances. Give him the understanding he needs to know that the value of his life and purpose are not determined by external situations. Enable him to see that success is not in how well things are going at the moment, but it’s in how close he walks with You in prayer and in Your Word. Help him to understand that true vision for his life and our lives together comes only from You. When my husband is feeling hopeless, I pray he would realize that his hope is found in You. Where his vision has become clouded because of futile thoughts, wrong actions, or advanced apathy, I pray You would enable him to comprehend that he is wholly dependent upon You for proper thinking and right actions. Where he has overworked or overworried, I pray You would revive him again. Even if he doesn’t know specifics about his future, help him recognize that he has a bright one. Don’t allow him to waste away in his own disappointments. Restore his spiritual sight so he can see that his future is found in You. In Jesus’ name I pray.

The prayer for daily bread reminds me that I am dependent on God for even the most mundane needs of my life. Only he has the power to control all the conditions, situations, locations, events, and people that need to be controlled in order for me to have the things that I need to have in order to live my life. Independency is a delusion. Even the most ardent atheist is dependent on God for his life and breath. No one is able to get what he needs for his physical existence on his own. No one lives a self-sufficient life. No one can say, “Look how successfully I have been able to care for me without any outside assistance.” No one! It really is true that “Every good and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17). So look up and give thanks. There really is a great and loving Supplier.

Initial Contact Script Good morning__________, this is__________from__________. The reason I'm calling you today specifically is so I can stop by and tell you about our new__________ program that increases__________. I'm sure that you, like__________, are interested in__________. (Positive response). That's great__________; let's get together. How's__________? Third-Party Endorsement Script Good morning__________, this is__________ from__________. (Insert your brief commercial on your company.) The reason I'm calling you today specifically is that we've just completed working on a major project for__________, which was extremely successful in increasing__________. What I'd like to do is stop by next__________to tell you about the success I had at__________. How's__________? Follow-Up Script Good morning__________, this is__________ from__________. A number of weeks ago I contacted you, and you asked me to call you back today to set up an appointment. Would__________ be good for you? About the Author STEPHAN SCHIFFMAN is president of D.E.I.

Challenges are stepping stones to success. Wake up every day, face challenges, and keep moving. 

Dream big, work hard and start pursuing your success every single day.

Challenges and obstacles are for sure, but success is a choice. Make yours this morning.

Gdmng, Sunshine! Just your daily dose of “wisdom” (because who doesn’t love a little dose of encouragement, inspiration or motivation in the morning)? Deep down, we all have the potential to be great. But let’s be honest, some of us planted those “greatness seeds” years ago & are enjoying a tree overflowing with awesome fruits. The rest of us? Still staring at a bag of seeds, wondering if the season is good & afraid of putting hands in dirt. Darling listen – those seeds won’t magically sprout into a self-watering garden of success. You gotta get your hands dirty (metaphorically…, unless you’re actually planting something today, then get dirty for real). Here’s the deal: Everything you do today is a seed for tomorrow. Remember, every thought, word & action counts. Shocking, I know.. but it has always been that way & it will always be that way. Sweetheart, ask yourself: While the universe is on your side, are you on your side? Because the universe is not here to do the weeding. That’s on you. May your metaphorical seeds blossom into a life-changing orchard. Keep Doing The Stuff, Keep Smiling, Stay Blessed & Enjoy your day!